The sharp decline in Chinese stock markets on Monday is a reminder of two things. The first is the continued fragility of the Chinese market. The second is that any economic dysfunction has political implications, both in Chinese domestic and foreign policy. This, in turn, will affect Chinese economic performance. It is essential, therefore, to understand Chinese national strategy.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been portrayed as an increasingly aggressive country prepared to challenge the United States. At the same time, aside from relatively minor forays into the South and East China Seas, China has avoided significant involvement in the troubles roiling in the rest of Eurasia. There is a gap between what is generally expected of China and what China actually does. To understand what China’s actual national strategy is, it is helpful to follow the logic inherent in the following five maps.

Ethnolinguistic groups

Geopolitical Futures

Let’s begin by defining what we mean by China. First, there is the China we see on maps. But there is also the China inhabited by the Han Chinese, the main Chinese ethnic group. Maps of the Chinese state and the ethnic group would look very different.

Han China is surrounded within China by regions populated by what are essentially other nations. The four most significant are Tibet in the southwest, Xinjiang in the northwest, Inner Mongolia in the north, and Manchuria in the northeast. The first three are recognized by Beijing as autonomous regions while Manchuria is a larger region made up of three northeastern provinces. Obviously, there are Mongolians who live in Han China and Han Chinese who live in Inner Mongolia. No region is homogeneous, but these four regions, with the limited exception of Manchuria, are not dominated by ethnic Han Chinese. About half the territory of what we consider China actually consists of Han Chinese people.

These four regions are a buffer around China, providing strategic depth to repel invaders. All four, at one time or another, resisted Chinese domination, as Tibet and Xinjiang still do today. Xinjiang is predominantly Muslim, and an insurgency and terrorist movement is particularly active there. Tibet is less active but no less opposed to Chinese domination. Inner Mongolia and Manchuria are generally content at the moment. The mood in these regions varies, but China must always be concerned to maintain control.

15-inch Isoyet and China population density

Geopolitical Futures

Not incidentally, a very similar geography emerges when we look at rainfall patterns. Roughly 15 inches of annual rainfall is needed to maintain an agricultural economy. This line, called the 15-inch Isohyet, is shown in the next map along with areas of population density in the People’s Republic of China.

The area east of the 15-inch Isohyet is Han China plus parts of Manchuria. The area to the west and north are the buffers along with some Han Chinese regions that are lightly populated. So one of the reasons Han China can dominate the buffer states is its relative population advantage. But this also means that the population of China, totaling 1.4 billion people, is crowded into a much smaller area than an ordinary map would show and much farther from most neighbors of the PRC. But for now, the rainfall line roughly defines the limits of what we think of as the Chinese.

Income by province

Geopolitical Futures

The next map adds to this picture. It is a map of annual per capita income by province. It shows an underlying division in China east of the 15-inch Isohyet. First, the economic difference between Han China and the rest of the PRC is striking. Per capita income in the western buffers is between 30 and 50 percent lower than the median income in the rest of China. And the area in China that is above the median—some more than 100 percent above the median—is a thin strip of provinces along the coast. The interior of Han China is not as bad off as the western buffers, but is still well below conditions along the coast. Economically, only the coast is above the median. Every other area is below it. And this defines a division in Han China itself.

However, per capita income is not a measure of economic well-being since it doesn’t tell us anything about the distribution of wealth. A better measure is household income. According to World Bank data, over 650 million Chinese citizens live in households earning less than $4 a day. Just under half of those live in households earning less than $3.10 a day—or about $1,000 a year.

This alone doesn’t capture the true reality. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of these people live outside the coastal region since the coastal region is much wealthier. Put another way, most Chinese wealth is concentrated 200 miles from the coast. The next 500–1,000 miles west is a land of Han Chinese living in Third World poverty. The China that most Westerners think about is the thin strip along the coast. The fact is that China is an overwhelmingly poor country with a thin veneer of prosperity.

We can already see some strategic realities emerging, but before we turn to that, we need to consider the next map—a terrain map of the areas surrounding China.

Topography of China and surrounding area

Geopolitical Futures

China’s southern border consists of the Himalayas in the west and hilly jungle country in the east. It is impossible to conduct major military operations in the Himalayas, so talk of a Chinese-Indian conflict is only possible for those who have never tried to supply an army. Similarly, as the British and Americas have discovered, conducting military operations in the hilly jungles of southeast Asia is a nightmare. China can’t invade anyone through the south over land, nor can it be invaded. Southern China is protected by a true Great Wall.

To the north, the PRC is bordered by Siberia. In the far east of Siberia, it is possible to conduct war, but no country has ever tried or conceived of waging an extended war, including invasion into Siberia, nor has any country attempted to mount an invasion from Siberia. Therefore, except for the Pacific Coast, China is secure and contained.

There is occasional talk about Chinese military operations in Central Asia. First, this would have to take place through the hostile territory of Tibet or Xinjiang. The major forces and supplies would have to be transported over 1,000 miles from the industrial base in Han China to the Chinese border. The supply lines would pass through desert and mountains. An invasion of Astana in Kazakhstan would require traveling a distance of at least 700 miles through mountains and near desert grasslands. Fighting in these ranges is as unlikely as invading over the Himalayas.

In effect, China is an island in Eurasia. It can move money around and sometimes technology, but not large modern armies. Therefore, China is not a threat to its neighbors, nor are they a threat to China. China’s primary strategic interest is maintaining the territorial integrity of China from internal threats. If it lost control of Tibet or Xinjiang, the PRC’s borders would move far east, the buffer for Han China would disappear, and then China would face a strategic crisis. Therefore, its goal is to prevent that crisis by suppressing any independence movement in Tibet or Xinjiang.

An equally urgent task is to assure that social conflict does not arise between the coastal region and the Han interior. The loss of foreign export opportunities has placed pressure on the coast. Beijing’s interest in maintaining stability in the interior requires transfers of money from the coast. However, the coast’s interests are focused on the United States, Europe, and the rest of Asia since these are the coast’s trading partners and the interior is incapable of purchasing the coast’s products. No stimulus imaginable can raise the interior’s income levels to the point that this area could become a market for the coast given the poverty they live in currently. This would be a multi-generational project.

This is not a new problem for China. Prior to Britain and the Opium Wars in the 19th century, China was enclosed, isolated, and relatively united. When the British opened China, massive inequality between the coast and the interior arose with the coastal region being more integrated into the global economy than into China’s economy. This led to regionalism and warlords, as each region had unique interests. Mao went into the interior on the Long March, raised a peasant army, destroyed the regional leadership, and enclosed China. China was poor but united. With his death, China went into the next phase of its cycle—reopening itself and betting that this time the coastal-interior split wouldn’t arise.

The split has arisen, but the political consequences have not yet played themselves out, and the strategy of the Communist Party is to forestall this by a combination of repressing any sign of opposition and a massive purge among the economic leadership. This is designed to both hold the coastal wealthy and the interior poor in check. Whether this will work depends on whether the People’s Liberation Army, essentially a domestic security force, can withstand the forces tugging it in various directions. Notably, a purge and reorganization has just begun in the PLA.

Seas off China’s eastern coast

Geopolitical Futures

The core strategy of China is internal. It has only one external strategic interest—the seas to the east.

China has vital maritime interests built around global trade. The problem is the sea lanes are not under its control, but rather under American control. In addition, China has a geographic problem. Its coastal seas are the South China Sea, south of Taiwan, and the East China Sea, to its north. Both seas are surrounded by archipelagos of island states ranging from Japan to Singapore with narrow passages between them. These passages could be closed at will by the US Navy. The US could, if it chose, blockade China. In national strategy, the question of intent is secondary to the question of capability. Since the US is capable of this, China is looking for a counter.

One counter would be to establish naval bases elsewhere in Asia. However, isolated by a US blockade from these bases, this would be of little use besides shaping regional psychology. Ultimately, the Chinese must create a force that would make it impossible to block access to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The Chinese are aiming to build a navy that could match the US; however, there are two obstacles to this. First, building warships and support vessels and facilities is fiendishly expensive, and China has put an urgent priority on domestic issues in the interior. Second, building ships is not the same as building a navy. Ships must be forged into fleets, and this requires commanders and staffs experienced in very complex warfare. China has little naval tradition, and building those staffs without a tradition to draw on is not something that would take a generation. Admirals who know how to fight carrier wars are as essential as aircraft carriers.

China’s stop-gap measure is its large number of anti-ship missiles. These missiles are designed to push the United States back from crucial choke points in the seas surrounding China. The problem with these missiles is that the US can destroy them. The US can’t close the choke points while the missiles are there, but the US has the capability to map China’s anti-ship network and attack it before moving into the choke points. China then must control at least some of these strategic passages from air, sea, and land on the islands of the archipelago. And the key island, Taiwan, is beyond China’s ability to seize.

The Chinese currently are unable to break through the cordon the US can place around the exits. China is, therefore, buying time by trying to appear more capable than it is. Beijing is doing this by carrying out strategically insignificant maneuvers in the East and South China Seas, which should be considered less engagement than posturing. China will maintain this posture until it has the time and resources to close the gap. Under the best of circumstances, this will take at least a generation, and China is not operating under the best of circumstances.

China, therefore, has three strategic imperatives, two of them internal and one unattainable in any meaningful time frame. First, it must maintain control over Xinjiang and Tibet. Second, it must preserve the regime and prevent regionalism through repressive actions and purges. Third, it must find a solution to its enclosure in the East and South China Seas. In the meantime, it must assert a naval capability in the region without triggering an American response that the Chinese are not ready to deal with.

The Chinese geopolitical reality is that it is an isolated country that is also deeply divided internally. Its strategic priority, therefore, is internal stability. Isolation amidst internal disorder has been China’s worst case scenario. The government of President Jinping Xi is working aggressively to avert this instability, and this issue defines everything else China does. The historical precedent is that China will regionalize and become internally unstable. Therefore, Xi is trying to avert historical precedent.

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Russia is almost landlocked

Sometimes a single map can reveal the most important thing about a country. In the case of Russia, it is this map.

One of the keys to understanding Russia’s strategy is to look at its position relative to the rest of Europe.

The European Peninsula is surrounded on three sides by the Baltic and North Seas, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean and Black Seas. The easternmost limit of the peninsula extends from the eastern tip of the Baltic Sea south to the Black Sea.

In this map, this division is indicated by the line from St. Petersburg to Rostov-on-Don. This line also roughly defines the eastern boundaries of the Baltic states, Belarus and Ukraine. These countries are the eastern edge of the European Peninsula.

Hardly any part of Europe is more than 400 miles from the sea, and most of Europe is less than 300 miles away. Much of Russia, on the other hand, is effectively landlocked. The Arctic Ocean is far away from Russia’s population centers, and the few ports that do exist are mostly unusable in the winter.

Europe controls Russia’s access to the oceans

Mauldin Economics

Russia’s access to the world’s oceans, aside from the Arctic, is also limited. What access it does have is blocked by other countries, which can be seen through this map.

European Russia has three potential points from which to access global maritime trade. One is through the Black Sea and the Bosporus, a narrow waterway controlled by Turkey that can easily be closed to Russia. Another is from St. Petersburg, where ships can sail through Danish waters, but this passageway can also be easily blocked. The third is the long Arctic Ocean route, starting from Murmansk and then extending through the gaps between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom.

During the Cold War, air bases in Norway, Scotland, and Iceland, coupled with carrier battle groups, worked to deny Russia access to the sea. This demonstrates the vulnerability Russia faces due to its lack of access to oceans and waterways.

It also reveals why Russia is, for all intents and purposes, a landlocked country.
A country’s access to the sea can greatly influence its economic and political strength.

Most of Russia’s population lives along the western border

Mauldin Economics

Russia’s population clusters along its western border with Europe and its southern border with the Caucasus (the area between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea to the south). Siberia is lightly populated. Rivers and infrastructure flow west.

Russian agriculture is in the southwest.

Mauldin Economics

The heartland of Russian agriculture is to the southwest. Northern Russia’s climate cannot sustain extensive agriculture, which makes the Russian frontier with Ukraine and the Russian frontier in the Caucasus and Central Asia vital. As with population, Russia’s west and south are its most vital and productive agricultural areas.

Russia’s railroad network is critical

Mauldin Economics

The importance of the western and southern regions can also be seen in the country’s transportation structure.

Rail transportation remains critical to Russia. Observe how it is oriented toward the west and the former Soviet republics. Again, the focus is the west and south—only two rail lines link European Russia to Russia’s Pacific maritime region, and most of Siberia is outside the range of transport.

Russia has lost its buffer against the West

Mauldin Economics

The next three maps show a basic internal pattern for Russia. The primary focus and vulnerability of Russia is in the west… with a secondary interest in the Caucasus. Siberia looms large on a map, but most of it is minimally populated and of little value strategically.

The first of the three maps shows that the current western border of Russia coincides with the base of the European Peninsula. The other maps show that population, agriculture, and transportation are located along the western border (with a secondary cluster in the Caucasus). This area is the Russian core, and all other areas eastward in Asia represent the periphery.

As a land power, Russia is inherently vulnerable. It sits on the European plain with few natural barriers to stop an enemy coming from the west. East of the Carpathian Mountains, the plain pivots southward, and the door to Russia opens.

In addition, Russia has few rivers, which makes internal transport difficult and further reduces economic efficiency. What agricultural output there is must be transported to markets, and that means the transport system must function well.

And with so much of its economic activity located close to the border, and so few natural barriers, Russia is at risk.

Russia wants to move its frontier as far west as possible

Mauldin Economics

It should be no surprise then that Russia’s national strategy is to move its frontier as far west as possible. The first tier of countries on the European Peninsula’s eastern edge—the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine—provide depth from which Russia can protect itself, and also provide additional economic opportunities.

Consider Russia’s position in 1914, just before World War I began.

Russia had absorbed the first tier completely and some of the second tier countries, such as present-day Poland and Romania. Its control over the bulk of Poland was particularly significant.

When Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire attacked Russia in 1914, the depth this buffer gave the Russians allowed them to resist without the fight extending into Russia itself until 1917.

Germany has

Mauldin Economics

In 1941, when Germany again attacked Russia, its penetration was more extreme. This map shows the extent of the advance. Germany held all of this territory at one point but not all at the same time.

The Germans seized almost all of the European Peninsula and, in their final thrust, moved east and south into the Caucasus. Ultimately, Russia defeated Germany through depth and the toughness of its troops.

The former exhausted the Germans, and the latter imposed a war of attrition that broke them. If the Russians didn’t have that strategic depth, they would have lost the war.

Therefore, the Russian strategy at the close of World War II was to push its frontiers as far west as possible.

Mauldin Economics

This was the furthest Russia extended—and it ultimately broke the Soviet Union. Russia had seized the first tier of countries—the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine – and pushed westward seizing the second tier, as well as the eastern half of Germany.

The ideal position of Russia posed an existential threat to the rest of Europe. The Europeans and the US had two advantages. They had a broad encirclement of Russia and could close its access to the sea when they wished.

But more important, they created a maritime trading block that generated massive wealth compared to the Soviet alliance (dragged down as it was by landlocked Russia). The arms race that resulted was a minor strain on the West but created an insurmountable cost to Russia.

When oil prices fell in the 1980s, the Russians could not sustain the decline of revenue. This crippled the Soviet Union.

Now Russia has nothing to lose

Mauldin Economics

Returning to the first map, the retreat of Russian forces back to the line separating the country from the European Peninsula was unprecedented. Since the 18th century, Russia controlled the first tier of the peninsula. After 1991, it lost control of both tiers. Russia’s border had not been that close to Moscow in a very long time.

The West absorbed the Baltics into NATO, bringing St. Petersburg within a hundred miles of a NATO country. There was nothing that the Russians could do about that. Instead, they concentrated on stabilizing the situation—from their point of view, this involved fighting Chechen insurgents on their side of the frontier, intervening in Georgia, sending troops to Armenia, and so on.

But as you can tell from these maps, the key country for Russia after 1991 was Ukraine. The Baltics were beyond reach for now, and Belarus had a pro-Russian government. But either way, Ukraine was the key, because the Ukrainian border went through Russia’s agricultural heartland, as well as large population centers and transportation networks.

This was one of the reasons the Germans in World War II pushed to, and beyond, the Ukrainian border to reach Russia.

With regard to the current battle over Ukraine, the Russians have to assume that the Euro-American interest in creating a pro-Western regime has a purpose beyond Ukraine. From the Russian point of view, not only have they lost a critical buffer zone, but Ukrainian forces hostile to Russia have moved toward the Russian border.

It should be noted that the area that the Russians defend most heavily is the area just west of the Russian border, buying as much space as they can.

The fact that this scenario leaves Russia in a precarious position means that the Russians are unlikely to leave the Ukrainian question where it is. Russia does not have the option of assuming that the West’s interest in the region comes from good intentions.

At the same time, the West cannot assume that Russia—if it reclaims Ukraine—will stop there. Therefore, we are in the classic case where two forces assume the worst about each other. But Russia occupies the weaker position, having lost the first tier of the European Peninsula. It is struggling to maintain the physical integrity of the Motherland.

Russia does not have the ability to project significant force because its naval force is bottled up and because you cannot support major forces from the air alone. Although it became involved in the Syrian conflict to demonstrate its military capabilities and gain leverage with the West, this operation is peripheral to Russia’s main interests. The primary issue is the western frontier and Ukraine. In the south, the focus is on the Caucasus.

It is clear that Russia’s economy, based as it is on energy exports, is in serious trouble given the plummeting price of oil in the past year and a half. But Russia has always been in serious economic trouble. Its economy was catastrophic prior to World War II, but it won the war anyway… at a cost that few other countries could bear.

Difficulties unite the Russians

Mauldin Economics

Thucydides distinguished between Athens and Sparta by pointing out that Athens was close to the sea and had an excellent port, Piraeus. Sparta, on the other hand, was not a maritime power. Athens was much wealthier than Sparta. A maritime power can engage in international trade in a way that a landlocked power cannot.

Therefore, the Athenian is wealthy, but in that wealth there are two defects. First, wealth creates luxury and luxury corrupts. Second, wider experience in the world creates moral ambiguity.

Sparta enjoyed far less wealth than Athens. It was not built through trade but through hard labor. And thus, it did not know the world, but instead had a simple and robust sense of right and wrong.

The struggle between strength from wealth and strength through effort has been a historical one. It can be seen in the distinction between the European Peninsula and Russia. Europe is worldly and derives great power from its wealth, but it is also prone to internecine infighting.

Russia, though provincial, is more united than divided and derives power from the strength that comes from overcoming difficulty. The country is in a geographically vulnerable position; its core is inherently landlocked, and the choke points that its ships would have to traverse to gain access to oceans could be easily cut off.

Therefore, Russia can’t be Athens. It must be Sparta, and that means it must be a land power and assume the cultural character of a Spartan nation. Russia must have tough if not sophisticated troops fighting ground wars. It must also be able to produce enough wealth to sustain its military as well as provide a reasonable standard of living for its people—but Russia will not be able to match Europe in this regard.

So it isn’t prosperity that binds the country together, but a shared idealized vision of and loyalty toward Mother Russia. And in this sense, there is a deep chasm between both Europe and the United States (which use prosperity as a justification for loyalty) and Russia (for whom loyalty derives from the power of the state and the inherent definition of being Russian).

This support for the Russian nation remains powerful, despite the existence of diverse ethnic groups throughout the country.

All of this gives the Russians an opportunity. However bad their economy is at the moment, the simplicity of their geographic position in all respects gives them capabilities that can surprise their opponents and perhaps even make the Russians more dangerous.

In the past few decades, there has been an increasing academic and popular focus on ethnic minorities, even turning minority studies into a viable academic field. In this new trend, however, minority studies are primarily focused on the present and re

cent past. This ignores the importance of historical minorities, especially ones that impacted states to such a degree as the Armenians impacted the Byzantine Empire. In addition to their own national history and culture, ethnic Armenians were also a highly important minority inside the Byzantine Empire.[1] During the middle centuries of Byzantium, from 610 to 1071, the Armenian populace served as an important source of manpower, and individuals of Armenian descent rose to the highest dignities in the Byzantine Empire as generals, politicians, patriarchs, intellectuals, and even emperors. Some of the most famous and important Byzantines in history had Armenian blood, including Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641), who saved Byzantium from the perilous Persian onslaught in the seventh century, and Photios (r. 858-867, 877-886), the most famous medieval Patriarch of Constantinople.[2] Armenian immigrants and Byzantines of Armenian descent constituted one of the key factors behind the longevity of the Byzantine Empire, positively impacting Byzantium in the fields of demographics, the military, imperial rule, economics, intellectualism, and religion.

The rise to prominence of the Armenians, starting at the end of the sixth century, constituted one of the most important changes in Byzantine ethno-demographics. Between the end of the sixth century and the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Armenians became the largest non-Greek ethnicity in the Byzantine Empire. Before examining any of the conditions created by their presence in the empire, it is first important to understand how the Armenians became Byzantium’s largest minority.

Byzantine Empire c.867. Wiki picture

The movements of the Armenians into the empire can roughly be broken into two different types, movement by choice and forced transplantation. Armenians that had become unhappy with the regime in Armenia, or believed that they could make a better life for themselves, crossed the border and entered the Byzantine Empire. In Byzantine territory, they would, at least in the first few centuries of this period, be able to count on receiving fertile land for farming, in exchange for military service.[3] The Byzantines, having suffered a population drop in the sixth century, were thankful for new populations to cultivate the land and fight off invaders. In addition, although the Byzantines followed the rulings of the Council of Chalcedon while the Armenians were Monophysites, the Byzantines and Armenians were both Christians.[4] This factor was especially important after the takeover of Armenia by the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750) during the second half of the seventh century, since many Armenians saw Christian Byzantium, even though it followed a different creed than the Armenians, as a better option than living under the rule of the infidel. After his sack of Theodosiopolis, Constantine V (741-775) was journeying back to Byzantium when Armenians from the surrounding countryside came and asked to return with him to Byzantium, to escape Arab rule.[5] Although the greatest period of voluntary immigration from Muslim-controlled Armenia to Byzantium was in the eighth century, it lasted throughout the period of Muslim rule in Armenia. Byzantium was a close neighbor, and the Byzantines were co-religionists, even if their exact beliefs and customs differed. It was seen by the Armenians as a close and viable option if they no longer wanted to endure Muslim rule or wanted new opportunities in Byzantium.

The other way that Armenians settled in the empire was by forced population transfers. The earliest of these, during the period from 582 to 1071, was under Emperor Maurice (r. 582-602). There had been forcible transplantations of Armenians and other peoples before in Roman and Byzantine history, and population transfers would also be forced on peoples such as the Slavs during this period, but this era ushered in a much broader trend in Armenian settlement patterns. Following the Byzantine takeover of much of Armenia after Maurice helped Khosrow II (r. 590-628) retake the Sassanid throne, Maurice moved a significant portion of Armenians to Thrace. He wrote in a letter to Khosrow, “They are a perverse and disobedient race…they are between us and cause trouble. Now come, I shall gather mine and send them to Thrace; you gather ours and order them to be taken to the east. If they die, our enemies die; if they kill, they kill our enemies; but we shall live in peace.”[6]

There is proof that this threat was carried out, as there were a substantial number of Armenian troops serving in Byzantine forces in the Balkans.[7] This series of forced population transfers continued throughout the coming centuries. Heraclius supposedly moved the descendants of the former Armenian royal family, the Arsacid Dynasty (54-428), to Philippi.[8] Philippikos Bardanes (r. 711-713) defeated a group of marauding Armenians and settled them in Melitene and the former province of Fourth Armenia.[9] In addition to those that had voluntarily left Armenia with Constantine V’s army, as mentioned earlier, there were also those that he took captive on campaign and moved to repopulate Thrace and Macedonia.[10] The continued settlement of Armenians in Thrace and Macedonia is evident by the Armenian prisoners, as well as Armenian carpets, listed in the spoils of the raids under Bulgar Khan Krum (r. c. 802-814).[11] Soldiers from the Armeniakon Theme,[12] almost certainly of Armenian background, were forcibly transferred to Sicily in 792, under Constantine VI, following an unsuccessful revolt.[13] Nikephoros I (r. 802-811) settled Armenians in Lacedaemon, the region of old Sparta, to repopulate the ravaged land, which had only been loosely in Byzantine hands during the previous two centuries.[14] Later in the ninth and tenth centuries, both Basil I (r. 867-886) and John I Tzimiskes (r. 969-976) settled ethnically Armenian Paulicians in Thrace.[15] This trend continued through the following two centuries, the last instance of Armenian population transfers being when Romanos IV Diogenes (r. 1068-1071) established an Armenian and Greek colony at Hierapolis, on the upper Euphrates.[16]

This influx of Armenians into the empire, whether by choice or by force, provided substantial benefits for Byzantium. The low population density of the Byzantine Empire following the plagues, wars, and territorial losses of the sixth and seventh centuries meant that new bodies were needed. The long Byzantine-Persian War (602-628), and then the continuous stream of Arab advances during the following centuries, only exacerbated the already heavy losses from the great plagues of the era of Justinian I (r. 527-565). The sharp drop in population also meant a drop in agricultural and economic output, threating the empire with starvation and economic problems. In addition, since the population, especially in central and eastern Anatolia and Thrace, was so low, there were few obstacles from local peoples to the newcomers. The devastated Byzantine lands were repopulated through these new Armenian populations, who provided both economic and strategic benefits. New Armenian families cultivated the land and provided labor for economic stimulus.[17] The severe depopulation by the end of the seventh century led Justinian II (r.685-695, 705-711) to try and move various peoples to under-populated regions, such as the Slavs to Anatolia and the Cypriots to the city of Cyzicus, just to the southwest of Constantinople.[18] While these transfers ended in rebellion and failure, the Armenians proved a permanent figment of the Byzantine demographic landscape, becoming an important group whose influx into the empire had stemmed Byzantine depopulation. Patriarch Photios wrote that Michael III (r. 842-867) “re-erected subject cities which have long lain low, and built others from the foundations, and re-peopled others, and made the boundaries secure for the towns.”[19] The new Armenian settlers helped to recreate urban culture and urban economy, providing the numbers to reestablish old cities. Cities and the Byzantine economy had of course survived during the seventh and eighth centuries, but in much reduced terms. The new Armenians helped to create a new, more vigorous Byzantine economy and population.

In addition, they could also provide strategic benefits. Depopulated regions had little chance of being able to defend the more central parts of the empire from invaders, or even stem their advance. The Armenians were a tough people from the hard lands of Armenia, used to struggles and fighting, and therefore an ideal population to have settled on one’s borders as a first defense. Integrating this new system of settlers as a first line of defense took more pressure off the Byzantine army, as now the population itself was strong and large enough to take a role in defending against foreign incursions. Before the tenth century, the Byzantine emperors had settled many Armenians in the Balkans, where they could be very useful as fighting men. Here in Thrace, Macedonia, and the Peloponnesus, they were far away from their homeland and removed from any potentially seditious Armenian movements again Byzantium, undercutting Armenian resistance against Byzantium. In addition, they were situated right on the frontier between the great Byzantine cities of Constantinople and Thessalonica and the dangerous peoples in the north, especially the Bulgars. This allowed for these regions to not only be repopulated by foreign peoples that were unlikely to rebel, being separated from their homeland and ethnic base, but also to serve as an economic and military asset in cultivating Byzantine land and serving as a first defense against foreign invaders.

The wide geographic dispersion of important people of Armenian descent indicates a Byzantine Empire that welcomed, or at the very least did not actively oppose, the talents and energies of the Armenians, especially early on, when they buttressed a population ravaged by disease and war.[20] The movement of Armenians from Armenia to Byzantium exposed them to a very different culture, and in some contexts this manifested itself in Armenians developing new political and cultural orientations, or a degree of assimilation, which was stronger in the core than at the peripheries of the empire. Although they often cannot bring all of their possessions with them, immigrants always bring with them their customs, unique identity, and native language. But during the period from the late sixth to late tenth centuries, urbanization, economic integration, conversion, education, and linguistic Hellenization resulted in the Armenians becoming, for the most part, amalgamated into Byzantine society. They had settled across the empire, from the shores of the western Mediterranean to the heights of Mt. Ararat. The Armenians had bolstered the Byzantine population right when it needed it most, facing the seemingly invincible enemies of the Bulgars and the Caliphs with a population decimated by plague and war. Much of the credit to the victorious resistance and eventual recovery of the Byzantine Empire during the first millennium must go to the Armenian element that had entered the empire. Their settlement inside Byzantium is only the first among the many ways in which they played a role in Byzantine history.

Although the Armenian population made substantial contributions to Byzantine society on a variety of levels, they primarily made their impact on Byzantium through the military. The Armenian people were renowned as soldiers during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. This was especially important for Byzantium after the loss of its other soldier producing regions, such as Illyria and the Arab-populated border regions in Syria and Palestine. Armenians had served in Roman and Byzantine armies for centuries, even playing an important role in Justinian’s multiethnic armies and fighting on a variety of campaigns, but before 582 they were just one among many ethnicities. This situation remained the same until the reign of Maurice. With the Avaro-Slav incursions into the Balkans during the sixth century, Illyria, a major recruiting ground for Byzantine troops, was effectively lost, necessitating greater dependence on Armenian and other ethnicities for troops. Armenian troops started to comprise the lion’s share of Byzantine armies, although contingents of other peoples such as Huns and Lombards still existed. They were excellent soldiers that filled the void of the lost Illyrian and Arab recruiting grounds, formerly the paramount centers for recruiting strong Byzantine soldiers. In addition, the steady migrations of Armenians, both by choice and forced by the Byzantine government, into Byzantium meant that there was a steady pool of Armenians from which to recruit troops, even after Armenia proper had been lost to the Byzantines. Maurice started to recruit substantial numbers of Armenian troops to serve in Thrace sometimes under ethnically Armenian commanders, such as Sahak Mamikonian and Smbat Bagratuni.[21] They formed the backbone of the Byzantine army from the reign of Maurice onwards. As soldiers, commanders, and rebels, the military positions of the Armenians would greatly impact the Byzantine Empire during the period from 582 to 1071.

Nikephoros Phokas defeats the army of the Hamdanid Emirate at Andrassos in 960. Illustration from the chronicle of 11th-century author John Skylitzes. Picture from Wiki

Heraclius actively recruited Armenian troops during his campaigns against the Persians and there were substantial Armenian elements in the Byzantine army during the first battles with the Arab forces coming out of the desert. The presence of Armenians in the military presumably remained high during the Byzantine Dark Ages in the seventh and eighth centuries, for which we have few sources. This can be presumed on the basis that there was a strong Armenian presence under the Heraclian Dynasty (610-711) in the seventh centuries and again under the Macedonian Dynasty (867-1056) at the end of the ninth century, and the occasional reference to Armenians in the sparse literary sources of the eighth and early ninth centuries. Armenian troops continued to be a major force in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Ethnically Armenian soldiers comprised a large proportion of the armies of Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963-969).[22] His successor, John I Tzimiskes, included 10,000 Armenian soldiers from King Ashot III (r. 952-977) of Armenia in one of his eastern campaigns.[23] The Byzantine general Bardas Phokas utilized Armenians in his armies to defeat the rebel Bardas Skleros in the late tenth century.[24] Basil II also utilized large numbers of Armenians in his campaigns against the Bulgarians and even in occupying Armenian states.[25] Michael IV (r. 1034-1041) and Constantine IX (r. 1042-1055) both utilized Armenian contingents as well, especially from the Byzantine regions that were heavily settled by Armenians, such as Sebastia, Taron, and Vaspurakan.[26] The dismissal of the Armenian militia by Constantine IX, however, led to a sharp drop-off in the utilization of Armenians in the Byzantine army. Of course, some Armenian still served in the Byzantine army. Romanos IV Diogenes still recruited some Armenians, posting a battalion under Khachatur, Dux of Antioch, to guard Cilicia.[27] There is evidence that Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081-1118) still used Armenian soldiers in his armies, decades after the loss of Anatolia,[28] the most heavily Armenian populated Byzantine region, in 1071. The recruited armies of the previous centuries that had been so predominantly Armenian began to be replaced by mercenary armies during the eleventh century. Despite these few remnants, however, the destruction of the Armenian militia and the increasingly contentious relations between the Byzantines and Armenians during the eleventh century spelled the end for the great Armenian influence in the army that it had previously known. During its heyday, however, the Armenian element in the Byzantine army had greatly impacted Byzantine history, contributing many of the finest soldiers in Byzantine history.

The Armenians also contributed some of the finest generals in Byzantine history; many of the leading Byzantine commanders throughout the period from 582 to 1071 were ethnically Armenian. Emperors Maurice and Phokas (r. 602-610) appointed the Armenians Mushel Mamikonian and Theodore Khorkhoruni to command posts.[29] The presence of Armenians in the highest echelons of the Byzantine military, however, began under Heraclius. Heraclius was heavily invested in promoting Armenians to leading positions, Armenians composing the lion’s share of his leading generals, such as Vahan, the Byzantine commander at the Battle of the Yarmuk (636), Mzhezh Gnuni, a leading general during the Byzantine-Persian War, and Manuel, praefectus augustalis, or Prefect of Egypt, during the later part of Heraclius’ reign.[30] The trend of Armenian generals continued after Heraclius’ death. Valentinus Arsacidus, Theodore Rshtuni, Smbat Bagratuni, John, Dux of Tigisis, in North Africa, and Isaac, Exarch of Ravenna compromised just a fraction of Byzantine commanders of Armenian descent during the second half of the seventh century.[31]

Even during the eighth century, when the ruling house, the Isaurian Dynasty, was not Armenian, the leading positions in the army were still dominated by Armenians. Tadjak Andzevatzik served as strategos[32] of the Bucellarion Theme and Artavasdos Mamikonian as strategos of the Anatolikon Theme under the Isaurian Dynasty. Andzevatzik was an Armenian nakharar[33] that had lived in Byzantium since the 740s; his personal bravery during a campaign so impressed Constantine V that the emperor gave him the rank of strategos and command over an army of over ten thousand men.[34] In addition to Andzevatzik and Mamikonian, Leo IV (r. 775-780) appointed several generals of Armenian extraction to command Byzantine troops in Cilicia.[35] The ethnically Armenian Tatzios and Alexios Mousele were important military commanders under Constantine VI (r. 780-797), Mousele actually being the critical force in giving Constantine access to imperial power by leading an army to the shores of the Bosphorus to threaten the long-standing regency of his mother, Irene (r. 797-802).[36]

The following centuries produced Armenians who become some of the greatest commanders in Byzantine history. Two important generals came from the ethnically Armenian family of Empress Theodora, the wife of Theophilos (r. 829-842).[37] Manuel, Empress Theodora’s uncle, was the leading commander under the Amorian Dynasty (820-867) and would briefly serve as strategos of five themes simultaneously, an unprecedented achievement in Byzantine history.[38] Under the regency of Theodora’s brother, Bardas Caesar, their brother Petronas served as the leading Byzantine commander. The tenth century was perhaps the greatest for the Armenian element in the Byzantine military. It had a host of spectacular Byzantine generals of Armenian extraction, including John Kourkouas and John Tzimiskes. Kourkouas would make the greatest inroads into Muslim ruled lands since the Muslim conquests of the seventh century, even taking the city of Edessa. The future emperors Nikephoros II Phokas and John I Tzimiskes then built on his achievements. Nikephoros was potentially of Armenian blood, and became known as “White Death of the Saracens” due to his spectacular victories over the ruling Hamdanid Dynasty (890-1004) in Syria. Tzimiskes then became the leading commander in the eastern parts of the Byzantine Empire after Nikephoros took the throne, conquering deep into the Levant, even coming within striking distance of Jerusalem. Basil II, one of the emperors of Armenian blood, also was known as one of the greatest Byzantine generals, slaughtering the Bulgarian army at the Battle of Kleidion in 1014, which in turn led to the complete Byzantine absorption of long-time rival Bulgaria.

Imperial policy and circumstances worked against the Armenian military establishment in the eleventh century. Armenian troops were no longer recruited as heavily, and not very many new Byzantine generals were of Armenian descent. There was no organized Byzantine campaign against the Armenian presence in the military; a host of circumstances merely acted against this status quo that had existed for centuries. The loss of all of Armenia and most of Anatolia, those Byzantine regions that were most populated by Armenians, to the Seljuks following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 was the final nail in the coffin of the Armenian presence in the Byzantine military.

Although a token presence would continue to exist for a few decades, the Armenian element no longer held the power or influence that they had once had. However, its work had been done; the contributions of the Armenian ethnicity to the military had greatly furthered the Byzantine Empire’s strength and longevity. The Armenians had served as valued soldiers and commanders in the sixth through eleventh centuries, forming the core backbone of the Byzantine army that fought off the seemingly unstoppable Muslim onslaught and ensured Byzantium’s survival and recovery. Armenians commanders won the lion’s share of the greatest victories of the Byzantines over the Muslim states during this period. Other peoples, such as the Persians and Arabs, used Armenians, famous as warriors, in their armies, but it was only under the Byzantines that they consistently held a position of importance at both the levels of the common soldier and military leader. The Armenian military establishment in Byzantium was one of the most important reasons for the survival of Byzantium, and through it Europe, in the face of ascendant Muslim might. Byzantine’s survival is one of the greatest contributions by Armenians to Byzantine and European civilization.

In addition to being the era of importance for the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire in terms of the population and military, 582 to 1071 was also the period of the Armenian emperors, where the majority of emperors were ethnically Armenian. This period was also the era of importance for the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire in terms of influence, military, and population. Many Armenians rose to high positions in the Byzantine government, including the highest position of them all: emperor. Nearly a fourth of all Byzantine emperors had an Armenian background, all of them reigning during the period from 582 to 1071.

Twenty Byzantine emperors are suspected to have Armenian origins. Maurice was the first suspected emperor of Armenian ethnicity. Maurice came from a city in Armenia, but his origins are not actively discussed beyond that in any source.[39] Heraclius and his descendants were likely Armenian, given Heraclius’ keen interest in Armenia and favoritism towards Armenians.[40] His regime was packed with Armenians in many of the highest civil and military positions, and he took a vested interest in reuniting the Armenian and Orthodox Churches and defending Armenia from the onslaught of the Muslim Caliphate. Any lack of mention of Heraclius’ origins can be attributed to the fact that Greek panegyrists would hardly have wished to call attention to Heraclius having origins outside of the Greco-Roman heritage of Byzantium. Such an impression could have cost Heraclius favor with the common people, who would have seen his Armenian heritage as being foreign and outside the Byzantine heritage. In the following century, Philippikos Bardanes and Leo V are directly referred to as Armenians in several primary texts.[41]

Holding the most sway over the entire empire, naturally these men of Armenian descent made their impact on the state. The Heraclian Dynasty and Leo V were particularly important. In 610, when Heraclius ascended the throne, Sassanid Persian armies had overrun Byzantine borders and would end up occupying half of the empire, from Egypt to Armenia. They even launched a joint siege against Constantinople with the Avars, which was one of the worst threats to Constantinople in Byzantine history. Heraclius saved Byzantium from the Sassanid Empire through adept leadership and a sixteen-year campaign that eventually destroyed the Sassanid armies. His descendants stemmed the tide of Muslim conquests, preserving Byzantium and preparing it for its eventual recovery. His great-grandson, Constantine IV, led the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681), which ended the Christian religious crisis over Monothelitism and at least nominally restored religious unity. Leo V ended one of the greatest threats to Byzantium, a Bulgar siege of Constantinople under Krum, and achieved a thirty-years peace with the Bulgars under Krum’s son, Omurtag (r. 814-831).

The greatest period of Armenian control of the Byzantine throne, however, was from 842 to 1056. This period had its start with the death of the previous ethnically Armenian emperor, Leo V. Leo was hacked to pieces in cold blood in front of the palace chapel’s alter on Christmas Day of the year 820. His former comrade-in-arms, Michael, was then raised to the throne as Michael II (r. 820-829). Michael had no connection to the Armenians, nor did his son, Theophilos, but Theophilos’ wife, Theodora, was from an Armenian family in Paphlagonia.[42] The Armenian connection, however, only began to play an important part in Byzantine rule after the death of Theophilos in 842. Theodora initially held power as regent for her infant son, Michael III. Perhaps influenced by her eastern upbringing, Theodora restored the worship of icons and definitely ended the period of iconoclasm, for which she is remembered as a leading Orthodox saint. Her brother, Caesar Bardas, who became the real ruler of the Byzantine Empire from 856 to 866, eventually curbed Theodora’s power. He created, for all practical purposes, an Armenian court. He promoted various Armenians to high positions in the military and civil service, such as his brother Petronas, who commanded the imperial armies, and also sponsored Armenian intellectuals, such as Leo the Mathematician and John the Grammarian. He also had Photios, a fellow Armenian, appointed as Patriarch of Constantinople, despite having been an intellectual and not a clergyman. Theodora and Caesar Bardas, with their respective regimes, had created a staunchly Armenian ruling power in Constantinople in the name of the half-Armenian Michael III.

Another Armenian, Basil, soon undermined this Armenian regime and would inaugurate one of the greatest dynasties in Byzantine history. Basil, known as the Macedonian, had come into the palace as a stable hand, eventually catching the eye of Michael III. Michael III was very fond of him and eventually fell entirely under his power, being convinced by Basil of his own uncle Bardas’ supposed threat to his throne. Basil had Bardas, the de facto Byzantine leader, killed and was appointed co-emperor by Michael. Michael, whose epithet, “the Drunkard,” speaks to his increasing incompetence and instability, was in turn killed by Basil, who took the imperial throne all for himself.

Bsail I on horse back. Wiki picture

Basil has been known as Basil the Macedonian for centuries, yet that epithet stems not from his ethnicity but from where he was born, in Byzantine Macedonia. The evidence actually leaves little room for uncertainty about Basil’s ethnic origins. Large numbers of Armenians had been relocated to Macedonia and Thrace since the time of the Emperor Maurice.[43] In addition, several Byzantine primary sources explicitly tell us that Basil was Armenian, including his own grandson, Constantine VII (r. 913-959).[44] This is perhaps the greatest proof, as it is unclear why Constantine would advertise an Armenian ancestry for his family if it were not true, especially since being from an ethnic minority damaged an emperor’s public support.

Basil had incredibly good relations with Armenians inside and outside the Byzantine Empire during his reign. Many historians note no real difference in ethnically Armenian Byzantine emperors’ actions towards the Armenians, just the same religious persecution and territorial expansion at their expense.[45] This makes Basil and his son Leo VI (r. 886-912) the exceptions to the rule, as both had very amicable relations with the ruling Bagratid Dynasty (885-1045) in Armenia and with Armenians inside the Byzantine Empire. All of Basil’s co-conspirators that killed Michael III were Armenian, illustrating the connections between Armenians in the capital. Under both Basil I and Leo VI, various Armenians rose to positions of prominence, including the Logothete Symbatios, Ishkhan Kurtik of Locana, Artavasdos, captain of the Hetairoi, or foreign guards, Theophylact Abastaktos, and the later basileopator Stylianos Zaoutzes.[46] This indicates at the very least some preferential treatment towards fellow Armenians. Basil I and Leo VI also maintained very amicable relations with the new Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia. Basil I recognized Ashot I as an independent monarch, Leo VI maintained an alliance with Ashot and later his son Smbat I, and Leo’s widow, Zoe Karbonopsina, welcomed Ashot II to Constantinople in 914.

The Macedonian Dynasty also had several injections of Armenian blood over its nearly 200 years on the throne. Leo’s second wife, Zoe Zautzaina, was the daughter of Stylianos Zaoutzes, and thus also an Armenian.[47] Although Leo’s son and successor, Constantine VII, was born by Leo’s fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, this marriage still shows the importance of Armenians in the Macedonian Dynasty, especially early on in their hold on power. During Constantine VII’s youth, Romanos I Lekapenos (r. 920-944), the son of an Armenian peasant from the Armeniak Theme, took the throne.[48] Romanos married his daughter, Helena, to Constantine, and she gave birth to the imperial heir, Romanos II, who was mostly of Armenian blood. Later, during the minority of Basil II and Constantine VIII (r. 1025-1028), John I Tzimiskes, a talented general of Armenian descent, reigned from 969 to 976 in the names of the young emperors. John was related to the Armenian Kourkouas family and came from the powerful ethnically Armenian Byzantine military nobility that controlled vast tracts of imperial lands.[49] He reached an amicable agreement with the Armenian king, Ashot III, that involved Armenian military contributions to one of John’s campaigns.[50]Although John’s bloodline did not get combined with that of the Macedonian Dynasty, he was still another Armenian who ruled as part of the Macedonian Dynasty.

The Macedonian Dynasty brought Byzantium to its greatest territorial height since the days of Heraclius, now having borders stretching from the Venetian lagoons to the mountains of the Caucasus and from the Syrian Desert to the steppes of the Crimea. The Byzantine army was arguably the most powerful military force in the world at the time of Basil II’s death in 1025. Byzantine coffers were full, the economy was still thriving, and the lands were secure. These achievements were only possible through the succession of superb emperors such as Basil I, John I Tzimiskes, and Basil II, and mighty generals such as John Kourkouas, many of them of Armenian ethnicity. These men of Armenian descent changed the destiny of Byzantium by bringing it back to greatness and providing it with the strength to weather the trials and tribulations of the coming centuries after the death of the last ruler from the Macedonian Dynasty in 1056.

While all of these ethnically Armenian emperors from 582 to 1071 had most likely been at least partially aware of their Armenian origins, they considered themselves first and foremost as any Byzantine would, as Romans. The greatness of the Byzantine Empire was the primary goal of these emperors. There was no sort of national thought or sense of nationalism like exists today, and ethnicity did not have the national connotations that it does in the present day. Such a concept of a national state simply did not exist. Those Armenians who played roles in the highest echelons of the government and military were heavily Byzantinized. This is especially true for emperors, the highest position in Byzantium. The Armenian emperors ruled as Byzantines, promoting civilized Greek culture and learning, Roman statesmanship, and the building of Orthodox churches. Some emperors, such as Heraclius and Basil I, might have given some preferential treatment to their fellow Armenians, promoting them to high positions, but this did not make these emperors more Armenian than Byzantine. Overall, all Byzantine emperors acted for the benefit of Byzantium. In many cases, these Armenians deserved the support of their emperors, becoming leading intellectuals, generals, and even a patriarch in the case of Photios. Despite these occasional bursts of ethnic identity, however, there were no major policies in favor of Armenian culture. None of the emperors of Armenian descent belonged to the Armenian Church, as following Orthodoxy was absolutely necessary for becoming emperor. No emperor tried to introduce the Armenian language into the Byzantine court. These were only the Armenian emperors in ethnicity, and occasionally hiring preferences. Ethnically Armenian, they were as Roman and as Byzantine as the rest of the emperors and the rest of Byzantium, ruling in the spirit of the Byzantine combination of Roman statesmanship, Greek language and culture, and oriental mysticism.

Although the imperial throne and the military were the main routes by which Armenians gained notoriety in the Byzantine Empire, Armenians made significant contributions to other areas of Byzantine society as well. In addition to the military and royalty, ethnically Armenian Byzantines made their impact on the intellectual, religious, administrative, and economic life of Byzantium.

A 14th-century Armenian illuminated manuscript. Wiki picture

Armenians were the leaders of the mid-ninth century intellectual resurgence in the Byzantine Empire, which became known as the Macedonian Renaissance. Bardas Caesar, Theodora’s brother and an Armenian, was a dedicated patron of the arts and sciences. This was not only on a personal basis; Bardas turned his support for intellectualism into state policy. This was expressed by the opening of a new “university” in the Magnaura Palace. This university was not an established intellectual administration like we have today, but rather a school of higher education with chairs in a variety of academic fields, such as philosophy and law. The Magnaura School became an intellectual hallmark of the Macedonian Renaissance. The shining leaders of the Macedonian Renaissance were two Byzantine Armenians, Leo the Mathematician and Photios. Leo was one of those medieval polymaths who excelled in a number of the sciences, including mathematics, geometry, astronomy, and philosophy. Leo became a trusted advisor to Bardas Caesar, who had consulted him on a variety of matters. With the creation of the university at the Magnaura Palace, Bardas immediately appointed Leo to head the establishment. Photios, like Leo, was a highly enlightened polymath, writing on theology, history, science, philosophy, medicine, rhetoric, lexicography, and romance. His Bibliotheca, also known as the Myriobiblon, is a gargantuan work which evaluates the works of a vast host of Byzantine authors since the fifth century B.C., many of which are now lost, making the Bibliotheca an important source on these lost works. In addition, there are other figures of Armenian heritage that enriched Byzantine intellectual life. The tenth century historian Genesios was most likely the grandson of Constantine the Armenian, given his laudatory handling of Constantine in On the Reigns of Emperors.[51] Emperor Constantine VII, one quarter Armenian, wrote a number of works on the empire, such as De Administrando Imperio and De Ceremoniis, and also patronized science and learning.

Icon of Photius from an image of a fresco in Kiev. Wiki picture

The greatest contribution to Byzantine society by Photios was not as an intellectual, however, but as Patriarch. He was one of the most powerful Patriarchs of Constantinople, fighting with the Pope over his appointment in the Photian Schism (863-867). Even today both Orthodox Christians and students of history remember him as one of the most powerful figures in the history of the Byzantine church. Several other Armenians also reached high positions in the church establishment, such as John the Grammarian (r. 837-843) and Theophylact (r. 933-956), both Patriarchs of Constantinople during the ninth century along with Photios.

Armenians also served in the Byzantine civil service. Under Heraclius, several Armenians were promoted in the civil service, in addition to the military, but a unique precedent was the case of Manuel. Manuel had served as both the military and civil leader of Byzantine Egypt. The same would be true of many Armenian commanders, as the position of strategos of a theme entailed wielding both military and civil power. In this capacity, many Armenians such as Tadjak Andzevatzik, Artavasdos Mamikonian, and Theodora’s uncle, Manuel, all held positions in the civil administration of the empire.

The greatest period of Armenians in the civil service and Byzantine administration was, like their most important contributions in Byzantine intellectualism and the Orthodox Church, in the ninth century. There were some examples of Armenian administrators in the period between the Heraclians and the regime of Caesar Bardas. Artavasdos appointed several Armenians to high civil positions in his short-lived regime in Constantinople in the mid-eighth century.[52] Leo the Armenian’s father-in-law, the Armenian Arsaber, became head of the judiciary and was appointed quaestor in 808 by Nikephoros I.[53] Also during this period, the great Byzantine family of Skleros first came to prominence under Leo Skleros, who served as governor of the Peloponnesus.[54] Later, Constantine the Armenian served Basil in his administration, also holding the rank of patrician and later logothete.[55] His son, Thomas, would serve Constantine VII as a logothete and also a philosopher, contributing to the intellectual atmosphere of Constantine’s court.[56] Stylianos Zaoutzes, an Armenian and father-in-law of Leo VI, held the title of basileopator and was an important minister under his son-in-law, Leo.[57] Basil II appointed men of Armenian origins to high administrative positions as well, Gregory the Taronite becoming governor of Thessalonica and Theodorakanos governor of Philippopolis. Later Theodorakanos’ relatives would also serve in the provincial administrations, George serving as governor of Samos and Basil as catapan of Lombardy.[58] In the eleventh century, to help administer their new Armenian territories, Byzantine emperors even employed Armenian monks to help with local administration in former Armenian territories such as Vaspurakan and Ani.[59] Therefore throughout the period from Heraclius through the Macedonian Dynasty Armenians had been present in the civil administration of the Byzantine Empire, often at the highest levels of the provinces and the entire empire.

Despite the high positions Armenians occupied in the military, intellectual, religious, and administrative realms, as well as the highest position of all, emperor, the vast majority of Armenians were commoners. They often occupied the same roles as their Greek or Slavic neighbors, working as farmers, craftsmen, sailors, and traders. Just like those Armenians who reached the imperial throne and the highest levels of the military, those Armenians who played the greatest roles in Byzantine society were heavily influenced by Byzantine culture and were generally Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians. Prime examples include Leo the Mathematician and Patriarch Photios. As time passed, certainly many of these Armenian settlers were thoroughly integrated into Greek speaking Byzantine society.[60]

Although medieval Armenia made its own contributions to theology, learning, arts, and architecture, Armenia was limited from fully developing due to its unstable position between two great powers and the constant internal unrest of the nakharars. It was in the Byzantine Empire that Armenians could contribute to all aspects of a powerful state, from the military to intellectualism. Their numbers, and especially their military and economic prowess, greatly contributed to Byzantium surviving the original Muslim onslaught of the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates in the seventh and eighth centuries. The Armenians also greatly contributed to the Macedonian Renaissance, one of the greatest flowerings of Byzantine culture, since nearly every major figure involved was of Armenian descent, from Caesar Bardas to Leo the Mathematician. Armenian generals, including John Kourkouas, John I Tzimiskes, and Basil II, directed the reconquest of Muslim occupied land, which had Byzantium reach its territorial and military height.

The military might have been the main route by which Armenians gained notoriety in Byzantium, but just like any people, the Armenians were diverse and multi-talented, contributing to imperial life and growth through the throne, the military, the intellectual circles, the churches, the administration, and the economy. The breath of contributions from those of Armenian descent, from mighty emperor to the lowly farmer in the Anatolian fields, illustrates the importance of the Armenian minority in making Byzantium a rich and vibrant society. The relationship between Byzantium and its Armenian minority was not always positive, and there was an underlining tension between the Armenians and other ethnic groups on a racial and religious level, but the Armenians were possibly the greatest minority in Byzantine history. The number of great emperors, talented generals, wise intellectuals, leading clergymen, and valuable members of Byzantine society of Armenian ethnicity illustrate the greatness of Armenia inside the Byzantine Empire. The Armenians had their glory days simultaneously with Byzantium, producing a triumphant and rich culture that thrived for centuries, preserved the glories of the past, and laid the foundations of modern Europe.

About the author

Michael Goodyear recently graduated with honors from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, as well as a minor in Latin American Studies. The focus of his research was on Byzantine history.

[1] Nationalism, in the modern interpretation of it as a nation state, did not exist during the Middle Ages. The Armenians here refer not to citizens of Armenia, but those who were Armenian in culture, ethnicity, and background. The idea of Armenian unity existed in a common homeland, common language, and even common rule, but this unity did not imply a national sentiment or a latent kingdom any greater than the ancestral heartland and even this ancestral homeland varied over time, since the concept of Greater Armenia was based both on where Armenians were presently settled and places historically associated with Armenia, rendering political considerations poor indicators of either “Armenian” or “Armenia.” Culture, language, or religious beliefs are also poor indicators of being Armenian inside the Byzantine Empire, since many Armenians converted, began to speak Greek, and became Hellenized once inside Byzantine borders. Origins are the chief indicator of being ethnically Armenian. The Byzantines fall under these same considerations, as they were by no means a nation in the modern sense either. The people that comprised Byzantium were not a uniform monolith but did share many similar aspects in many cases, such as calling themselves “Roman,” speaking Greek, and practicing Orthodox Christianity.

[2] The Patriarchy of Constantinople was one of the five members of the pentarchy, or the five major episcopal sees of the former Roman Empire, along with Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. After the loss of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem to Arab armies in the seventh century, the Patriarch of Constantinople became the de facto leader of Christians in the East and on-and-off rival with the Pope in Rome.

[3] For more information on this phenomenon, see Peter Charanis, “Ethnic Changes in the Byzantine Empire in the Seventh Century,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers XIII (1959): 29. The reader should be wary, however, since Charanis closely follows the now antiquated views of George Ostrogorsky regarding soldier farmers. Still, many Armenians became part of the property-holding classes and also served in the Byzantine military. Perhaps the most quintessential example is that of the great landed aristocracy of the tenth and eleventh centuries, such as the families of Kourkouas and Skleros, which were also ethnically Armenian.

[4] The Fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon, took place in 451 and stipulated the nature of Christ, a question that had led to religious divisions and disputes well before even the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325. The Fourth Ecumenical Council decided that Christ had two distinct natures and wills, one human and one divine, perfectly united in hypostasis with neither being superior or inferior. Instead, the Armenians followed Monophysitism. Monophysite constituencies believe that Christ has one nature in which divinity and humanity are perfectly united. The Armenians recognized the Third Ecumenical Council, at Ephesus, as the last legitimate one, but did not recognize the Council of Chalcedon or any succeeding councils that are considered ecumenical in the Orthodox tradition. This standpoint was first officially stated at the First Council of Dvin in 506.

[5] Zaven Arzoumanian, trans., History of Ghevond, the Eminent Vardapet of the Armenians (VIII Century) (Burbank: Council for Religious Education, Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America, 2007), 124.

[7] Peter Charanis, “The Transfer of Population as a Policy in the Byzantine Empire,” Comparative Studies in Society and History III, No. 2 (1961):142. This passage discusses the argument for the literal interpretation of the removal of Armenians from their homeland under Maurice.

[32] Στρατηγός (strategos) literally means army leader. In the middle Byzantine Empire it referred to a military governor of a theme, or territorial unit.

[33]Nakharar was a hereditary title given to the nobility of ancient and medieval Armenia. Referring to the nakharars as a group generally signifies the Armenian nobility as a group or a whole. Each nakharar generally controlled his own estate and could call upon a private army, which created a hierarchy of dependent land-owners and lords with regional power.

[41] Movsēs Dasxuranc’i, The History of the Caucasian Albanians, trans. C. Dowsett (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 202. Genesios, On the Reigns of Emperors, 11, 25, 32. David Nicetas, The Life of Patriarch Ignatius, trans. Andrew Smithies (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2013): 6-7. Movses Dasxuranci refers to Philippikos Bardanes as Armenian and Genesios and the Life of Patriarch Ignatius refer to Leo V as Armenian.

[46] The title λογοθέτης (Logothete) was a Byzantine administrative position equivalent to that of a minister of state. Ishkhan was a medieval Armenian title that meant prince. The ἑταῖροι (hetaireia) was an imperial guard corps that was primarily composed of foreigners. The term translates to “the company,” which harks back to the old Macedonian Companions of Philip II and Alexander the Great. For more information on the importance of these individuals in the governments of Basil I and Leo VI, see Der Nersessian, Armenia and the Byzantine Empire, 21; George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1969), 242; and Nicholas Adontz, “Basil I the Armenian,” Armenian Review 9 (1956), 13-14.

Setting up a chinese IP camera without manual

This post is probably a no-brainer for quite a lot of people. And it should have been for me too. I don’t know if my brain was just not working from the dry and hot el niño weather, but it took me quite a while to figure this out. Since chances are there are others with the same problem, I thought it’d be worth to write it up.

My boss bought a few IP-camera’s on Ali-Express together with a recorder to monitor some areas with expensive equipment. I won’t go into the security of these types of camera’s here. And of course the cheap stuff from Ali-Express comes in an unmarked box without any manuals. There’s also no brand to be found on the camera. Normally it is a matter of pride to not need manuals. But the problem with IP camera’s is that you need to know their network settings somehow. That is where I ran into trouble.

The camera’s have both a wired and wireless connection available. I was hoping the camera would be set to dynamic IP, so it would pickup an IP address from the DHCP server on my router, and I could see it in the router status page when I connected it with a wire. No such luck though. The next thing I tried was setup a DHCP server on my laptop. It’s pretty straightforward to install dnsmasq, and the only settings you need to adjust are the interfaces directive (make sure it’s not running on your wifi interface and mess up the wifi) and DHCP-range directive. And you need to set a static IP in the same sub-net for your wired network card. I’m not going into the details for this, but suffice it to say this didn’t work either. So clearly the IP-camera wasn’t set for a dynamic IP. I tried a few of the simple IP addresses like 192.168.0.2 192.168.1.2, etc but none worked. I was ready to give up what my brain finally kicked into gear: wireshark.

I have used wireshark plenty of times before to analyse network traffic. It is an awesome tool. It allows you to see all network traffic passing through your network interfaces. I did see the light on the wired network interface of the camera blinking, so I knew it was trying to communicate through the network. So I connected the camera with a cable straight into the network card of my laptop. I ran wireshark on that network interface and looked at the traffic coming by. Very quickly I noticed ARP-packets where an IP-address 192.168.1.136 was asking who has 192.168.1.1. This means that there is a device with IP-address 192.168.1.136 who is looking to contact IP-address 192.168.1.1. Chances are that this is the camera looking for a router to contact the internet. Indeed the camera’s turned out to be configured with NTP enabled to sync it’s hardware clock with a server on the internet, and it was trying to get on the internet. So now I knew the IP-address of the camera was 192.168.1.136. From that point onward it was straightforward again. Just set a static IP (192.168.1.2) on my laptop wired network interface, have a cable between the camera and the laptop, and I could access the web-interface of the camera on http://192.168.1.136.

Configuring could finally commence. It took me way to long to realize to get wireshark. It was pretty easy once I remembered.

Mechanical properties of material:There are mainly two types of materials. First one is metal and other one is non metals. Metals are classified into two types : Ferrous metals and Non-ferrous metals.

Ferrous metals mainly consist iron with comparatively small addition of other materials. It includes iron and its alloy such as cast iron, steel, HSS etc. Ferrous metals are widely used in mechanical industries for its various advantages.

The ability of material to withstand load without failure is known as strength. If a material can bear more load, it means it has more strength. Strength of any material mainly depends on type of loading and deformation before fracture. According to loading types, strength can be classified into three types.

a. Tensile strength:

b. Compressive strength:

3. Shear strength:

According to the deformation before fracture, strength can be classified into three types.

a. Elastic strength:

b. Yield strength:

c. Ultimate strength:

#2. Homogeneity:

If a material has same properties throughout its geometry, known as homogeneous material and the property is known as homogeneity. It is an ideal situation but practically no material is homogeneous.

#3. Isotropy:

A material which has same elastic properties along its all loading direction known as isotropic material.

#4. Anisotropy:

A material which exhibits different elastic properties in different loading direction known as an-isotropic material.

#5. Elasticity:

If a material regain its original dimension after removal of load, it is known as elastic material and the property by virtue of which it regains its original shape is known as elasticity.

Every material possess some elasticity. It is measure as the ratio of stress to strain under elastic limit.

#6. Plasticity:

The ability of material to undergo some degree of permanent deformation without failure after removal of load is known as plasticity. This property is used for shaping material by metal working. It is mainly depends on temperature and elastic strength of material.

#7. Ductility:

Ductility is a property by virtue of which metal can be drawn into wires. It can also define as a property which permits permanent deformation before fracture under tensile loading. The amount of permanent deformation (measure in percentage elongation) decides either the material is ductile or not.

If the percentage elongation is greater than 5% in a gauge length 50 mm, the material is ductile and if it less than 5% it is not.

#8. Brittleness:

Brittleness is a property by virtue of which, a material will fail under loading without significant change in dimension. Glass and cast iron are well known brittle materials.

#9. Stiffness:

The ability of material to resist elastic deformation or deflection during loading, known as stiffness. A material which offers small change in dimension during loading is more stiffer. For example steel is stiffer than aluminum.

#10. Hardness:

The property of a material to resist penetration is known as hardness. It is an ability to resist scratching, abrasion or cutting.

It is also define as an ability to resist fracture under point loading.

#11. Toughness:

Toughness is defined as an ability to withstand with plastic or elastic deformation without failure. It is defined as the amount of energy absorbed before actual fracture.

#12. Malleability:

A property by virtue of which a metal can flatten into thin sheets, known as malleability. It is also define as a property which permits plastic deformation under compression loading.

#13. Machinability:

A property by virtue of which a material can be cut easily.

#14. Damping:

The ability of metal to dissipate the energy of vibration or cyclic stress is called damping. Cast iron has good damping property, that’s why most of machines body made by cast iron.

#15. Creep:

The slow and progressive change in dimension of a material under influence of its safe working stress for long time is known as creep. Creep is mainly depend on time and temperature. The maximum amount of stress under which a material withstand during infinite time is known as creep strength.

#16. Resilience:

The amount of energy absorb under elastic limit during loading is called resilience. The maximum amount of the energy absorb under elastic limit is called proof resilience.

#17. Fatigue Strength:

The failure of a work piece under cyclic load or repeated load below its ultimate limit is known as fatigue. The maximum amount of cyclic load which a work piece can bear for infinite number of cycle is called fatigue strength. Fatigue strength is also depend on work piece shape, geometry, surface finish etc.

#18. Embrittlement:

The loss of ductility of a metal caused by physical or chemical changes, which make it brittle, is called embrittlement.